A Course With a Story
Since 1891
On the evening of Thursday 22 October 1891, twenty men met at the Cafe on Church Street, Dewsbury, and agreed “that we form a Golf Club for Dewsbury and District”. It is still the first entry in the club’s minute book.
Within weeks the landowner, Mr E B Wheatley-Balme, had given his blessing, and the most famous golfer of the age was laying out the links: Old Tom Morris of St Andrews, four times Open Champion.
In the years since, the course has been shaped by Old Tom Morris, Ted Ray, Dr Alister MacKenzie, and later Peter Alliss and Dave Thomas. Few clubs anywhere can name a list of designers like it.
Timeline
1891 | A club is born | Twenty men meet on Church Street on 22 October and form the club. That November Old Tom Morris lays out the first nine holes, and membership is a guinea a year.
1894 | The Yorkshire Union | Dewsbury’s Captain and Secretary represent the club at the Yorkshire Union of Golf Clubs in Leeds, in the year the Union was formed.
1895 | The Balme Cup | President E B Wheatley-Balme presents a silver challenge bowl, thought to be one of the oldest trophies in Yorkshire golf.
1900 | A stone clubhouse | A new clubhouse opens on 9 June, replacing the 1892 pavilion that intruders had raided for the club’s whisky.
1902 | George Sargent | Sargent of Esher, Surrey becomes Professional and Greenkeeper. Seven years later he is US Open Champion.
1906 | Eighteen holes | Ted Ray, professional at Ganton, plans the extension to 18 holes. The new course opens on Saturday 6 October.
1913 | Dr Alister MacKenzie | A new clubhouse opens on the site of today’s, and MacKenzie’s scheme for the course is adopted in December.
1914 | The Great War | Soldiers are billeted in the clubhouse and the course is cut to nine holes. Four members do not come home.
1919 | A company is formed | Dewsbury District Golf Company Ltd is set up to clear the club’s debts and bring the disused holes back into play.
1931 | The land is ours | By 1931 the members own all the land the course stands on. By 1934 the cattle, and most of the fences round the greens, are gone.
1941 | Fifty years, and war again | In the club’s fiftieth year, 20 acres, the 10th and 11th holes, are ploughed up to grow food.
1944 | A match for St Dunstan’s | An exhibition match on the course raises more than £2,400 for St Dunstan’s, the charity for blinded servicemen.
1974 | Alliss and Thomas | After two years of work to plans by Peter Alliss and Dave Thomas, the full course is back in play on 4 May.
1991 | One hundred years | The club celebrates its centenary.
2002 | A new clubhouse | The clubhouse members know today is built to replace the old one.
2016 | 125 years | The club marks its 125th anniversary, and a new practice area opens with a large green, chipping areas and three bunkers.
2026 | 135 years | 135 years of golf here, and counting.
1891 - Old Tom Morris lays out the links
The original nine holes
Old Tom Morris was the keeper of the Old Course at St Andrews and won the Open in 1861, 1862, 1864 and 1867. In November 1891 he was here laying out the new links, and he sat in on the club’s first Annual General Meeting.
In March 1892 the nine holes were given names: Carriage Drive, Bottle Neck, Whitley, Pinnacle, Ridge, Quarry, Brandy Well, Rifle Butts and Cote Wall.
Old Tom kept in touch. He offered the club 10% off clubs and balls supplied by him, suggested moving the ninth hole to the top of the hill, and recommended John Burnes as greenkeeper and instructor at £1 a week. His own bill for the links came to £7 12s. 4d.
1906 - Ted Ray & the eighteen-hole course
From nine holes to eighteen
Members talked about a longer course from 1898. In January 1906 T G Beaumont, the club’s first Honorary Secretary, showed the AGM his plans “by limelight apparatus”, and members promised £250 towards the work.
Ted Ray, then the professional at Ganton and later Open and US Open Champion, was asked for a scheme for 18 holes. The new course opened on Saturday 6 October 1906 with a bogey of 80. The old nine holes were retired.
To help look after it, a horse was borrowed from Savile Cricket Club. Its stable was the building, now a ruin, between the 17th green and the 18th tee.
1909 - Our US Open Champion
George Sargent
In January 1902 the committee wrote to Harry and Tom Vardon and Sandy Herd for advice, and advertised in Golf Illustrated for a new professional. George Sargent of Esher, Surrey started on 31 January 1902 as Professional and Greenkeeper.
The club helped him play the Open: £2 12s. 6d. for Hoylake in 1902, and £4 a year for Prestwick, Sandwich and St Andrews after that.
In February 1906 Sargent resigned to emigrate to America. The committee turned down his request for help with his passage. Three years later he won the 1909 US Open at Englewood, New Jersey, with a record score of 290. The George Sargent Bar in the clubhouse carries his name today.
1913 - The Man Behind Our 9th Green
Dr Alister MacKenzie
Before he became golf’s most celebrated architect, Alister MacKenzie was a doctor in Leeds. He laid out his first course at Alwoodley in 1907, and by 1913 his name was spreading across Yorkshire.
On 29 October 1913 the committee asked “Dr Mackenzie” to come to the links and report. His scheme was adopted on 3 December: new tees, new greens or both on fourteen of the eighteen holes. His fee of £10 was paid the following February.
MacKenzie was famous for his greens, and the club’s centenary history points to one in particular: “our present ninth green with its ups and downs”. Members still talk about it today. He went on to design Cypress Point in California and, with Bobby Jones, Augusta National, home of the Masters.
1913 - A Clubhouse on the Hill
The Club House
In November 1912 the members agreed to build a new clubhouse, and to pay for it subscriptions went up from one guinea to three. The single-storey wooden building, with its two mock-Tudor gables, cost about £1,235 and stood on the site of today’s clubhouse.
It opened in September 1913 with three days of competitions, opened by Major P B Walker, while his sister Miss Walker presented the prizes.
It was extended in 1964, 1969 and 1980, and a considerable part of it was still standing at the centenary in 1991. It served the club until the new clubhouse was built in 2001.
1975 - One of the Longest Serving Professionals
Nigel Hirst
Nigel started as an assistant under Charles Hughes at Woodsome Hall, and in 1974 became the country’s youngest club professional, at Ogden. He joined Dewsbury in 1975 and became one of the longest-serving club professionals in the country.
He never lost his love of playing. In 2015 he won the Huddersfield Golf Alliance’s Page Trophy, beating his protégé James Ward into second place, 43 years after he first won it in 1972.
He campaigned for years for a proper practice area, which finally opened in 2016. In January 2020 James Ward took over as Head Professional.
Shaped by golf’s greatest names
Old Tom Morris | Four-time Open Champion and keeper of the Old Course at St Andrews. He laid out the original nine holes in November 1891.
Ted Ray | Professional at Ganton when he planned our extension to 18 holes in 1906. He went on to win the Open in 1912 and the US Open in 1920.
Dr Alister MacKenzie | Asked in October 1913 to report on the links. His scheme altered tees and greens on 14 holes, for a fee of £10. Our 9th green, with its famous ups and downs, is his. He went on to design Augusta National.
Peter Alliss & Dave Thomas | Visited in 1971 and drew up a new layout, including a new 6th hole through Jordan Wood. The full course reopened in May 1974. The pair also designed The Belfry.
Tales from the course
Brandy Well | The Wheatley family, who owned the land, were in the spirits business. When tasting their brandy they watered it from a stream near today’s 16th green, hence Brandy Well. There is said to be a Gin Well somewhere too. Nobody has found it yet.
The whisky thieves | The first pavilion, built in 1892 for £47 10s., was broken into several times. The intruders “helped themselves to the Club’s store of whisky”, “a thing which could not be borne on any account”.
Caddies from the Reformatory | Boys from the Calder Farm Reformatory kept the ground in order and carried clubs, for 6d. for nine holes. When the Reformatory’s governors finally agreed to Sunday golf, it was only after 1pm, and with no caddies.
The Rifle Butts | The old 8th hole was named after the rifle butts. In 1892 the Mirfield Rifle Corps had them on 21 Saturday afternoons, and there was no golf while they shot.
Exploding golf balls | In 1902 the club banned Haskell, Kempshall and other rubber-cored balls from competitions. Early Kempshalls could crack open, or even explode. The ban lasted seven months.
The wartime fields | In 1917 Ossett’s course was turned over to farming, so its members were given cheap green fees here. In 1941 our own 10th and 11th holes went under the plough.
We will remember them
Captain Arthur C Chadwick
Many members joined the Forces in the First World War, and four did not return: Captain Arthur C Chadwick, Harold Hirst, Eric A Mitchell and Reginald Stubley.
Arthur Chadwick was a scratch golfer and the club’s Honorary Secretary. He served with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and was killed in action in Belgium on 29 October 1915.
In 1919 F P Mitchell of Cote Wall presented a silver cup in his memory. It is still played for as the Foursomes Cup.